An evening with Heilung

©2022 Michael Raven

Heilung at Myth Live, Saint Paul, MN (15 Sept 22) | Opening Ceremony [photo credit: Michael Raven]

Heilung is one of those bands/acts/performances/whatever I have wanted to see since I was introduced to them about two years ago. I saw one of their videos for a live performance and was instantly hooked. This, I thought, is what ritual should be about.

Continue reading “An evening with Heilung”

wayfarer come home

©2022 Michael Raven

i am ravenborn
a wayfarer
come home
to the queens'
vicious embrace
her tearing into
my heart darkened
w/blood throbbing
in her fist
offered feast
to the blackwings
turning skies
night

summoned i 
return underworld
to be taken inside
her, embraced &
rejoined
a blood kiss
black against my
cheek

carry worlds

©2022 Michael Raven

i carry worlds
in my cranebag

forest floor needle brown
night feather scry skies
wood ring words taut
my fungal heart gills
and waves tow tide under

songs immigrant
riding skiff at dawn
to kiss the sea
burning red

tucked inside
all

Grab bag of disappointingly boring contents

©2022 Michael Raven

I’ve been a little less productive here lately, as I have a couple of things on my plate that I’m working on. There is the aforementioned collaborative multimedia piece I am working on, which has three of the five episodic storytelling pieces completed (it takes me anywhere from 10-20 hours per 5-minute episode to engineer the sound and write music, depending on how creative I am feeling and how much tweaking the audio needs). That’s finally start progressing into video format, so I suspect it might actually appear sooner or later.

Continue reading “Grab bag of disappointingly boring contents”

moon, my love

©2022 Michael Raven

we were madness
-- that much recalled

feathered and furred
interred in dirt
waiting mandrake days
in the company of
grandfather red
who spotted his white
shadows in night

i howled back then
i am sure
head back, spellbound
naked and savage
painted near black
with woad

sometimes still calling
i drift eyes skyward
hoping to capture your
manic glow

Into thin air.

©2022 Michael Raven

The Lady of Shadows holds in one hand a spear half as tall as she, and her shoulders are covered in jet feathers, opalescent and oily in the light of the mood, as if light is afraid to touch her mantle.

Her voice is like black velvet or dark chocolate. “The question is… are you here to die? Or are you here to fly?”

“This is one of those times where thinking hard before you speak might be worthwhile,” points out Raven.

“Shut up, carrion,” the Lady of Shadows says.

Continue reading “Into thin air.”